Morning Glory
Your seed is as hard as stone.
Around you, seeds burst and grow
Swiftly upwards they climb.
They bid farewell to the soil under them,
to the ants and the worms.
You lie in the ground
and wait.
Days later, maybe weeks,
the soil is damp around you as you swell.
One damp morning
you feel the bonds around you
release
and you are free.
Your first roots reach down into the soil.
They direct food and water to you as you grow.
Your head knocks and pushes
and you begin your climb.
You are surrounded by thick and hairy stems.
Your aunts and cousins tower above you
swaying in the breeze.
You sense that you must find the sun
Your growing point prods and searches.
It finds tiny openings of sun and sky above
between your aunts and cousins.
You stretch now and swirl
around and around
until you find a place to hold and
you clasp onto the sturdy stem of a kind aunty.
“Auntie, may I share this space with you?”you ask.
She smiles down on you from above and she nods.
You twist from cousin to cousin in the field.
You hold on and twirl.
Around green leaves and stems.
Your hold is firm as you clasp
and then you keep seeking.
And your journey continues
as you quietly thread your way through the garden.
The breeze blows and time passes
And between their sheltering leafs and stems,
tiny twisted tunnels of color nuzzle close to you,
wrapped as tight as a swaddled babes.
They coil and spring along the path of your many cousins
Each delicate coil waits for its cue to unfurl.
And one morning
as the crickets chirp,
as the sun smiles warm between the clouds
painting the garden gold,
the unfurling begins.
Each tiny coil begins to unwind
gracefully, silently;
and slowly the petals open
revealing treasures,
a surprise to all.
Flowers,
with color as blue as the sky
as brilliantly purple as a rainbow,
as delicate as a spider’s thread;
gossamer wings open to the sun.
“Good morning” you whisper to the sky.
“We have arrived.”
And the clouds travel lazily through the blue sky as though in assent .
“Greetings, jewels of the earth,” they reply.
And your flowers and the sky silently mirror one another.
Blues and purples and whites.
They speak in the language of flowers and sky.
But such brilliance is but fleeting
as beauty often is.
By noontime the blue dancers have shyly retreated,
winding their gossamer petals
tightly around themselves,
they look inward once again.
They coil tightly, gracefully,
secretly.
Their beauty once again hidden from us
and from the sky above.
Why do you hide, morning glory?
And you and your twisted dancers patiently wait,
Folded between your aunts and cousins of the field.
You wait for another morning to dawn,
for another chance to open,
to blossom,
to be strong,
to dance before the sun,
to mirror the clouds in a morning dance
and then again to coil and bow
until another day.
